Companies Cutting Costs and Shedding Jobs

A government report issued Friday announced that the U.S. economy lost 533,000 jobs in November, bringing this year’s total to 1.9 million jobs lost. This was the worst monthly job loss since December 1974.

With the tight credit market, credit has become either hard to find or too expensive for many companies to take on. This, combined with decreased consumer confidence and lower credit card limits, companies have been forced to cut costs, which has hurt manufacturing, construction and tourism industries. Even retail industry, despite the holiday shopping season, shed jobs.

Job losses may continue to increase.

The job losses are not likely to taper off in the near future, and we may see things get worse in the coming months. Lawmakers and Barack Obama’s transition team are working on a plan that will “save or create” jobs in the coming months, but this may not stem entirely the nation’s job losses. No one on the Obama team is talking about growing jobs, just cutting our losses.

“Our economy has already lost nearly 2 million jobs during this recession, which is why we need an Economic Recovery Plan that will save or create at least 2.5 million more jobs over two years,” said Obama in a statement. “There are no quick or easy fixes to this crisis, which has been many years in the making, and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.”

And he may indeed be right, if recent action by some of the countries largest corporations. CNN reports that “on Thursday, AT&T, DuPont, Viacom, Credit Suisse and Avis announced cuts that totaled nearly 23,000 lost jobs, most of which will take place over the next several months.”

Do you have your own story about the recession or the recent job cuts? Share it in the comments!